London loves

We had chosen to be free
the mattress, sheets bleary
with Silk Cut's spoilt-milk odour
stalks poking the whelked cement
capped by tiny purple flowers
and the clouds’ muddy roads
what others had sloughed
to find simpler skin
or devoured without feeling
we clung to, ragged and complex
still trying to comprehend
sills of dusty tapes
the landlord mainly round
Japanese girl in tow and
the day recreated again and again.

Packets of club fliers flap
through the letterbox
we await a piece of good news
sensitive selves aflutter.
Guest list, gummy floor
velvet creep of dry ice
club after club seeking
the rumbling empty room
like the drum of a machine
at Launderama.
We live because we must
practising chords in a coffin-
sized room - Gold Blend, cigarettes
an out-of-time strum.
Was it you I heard singing last night?

@ianjmclachlan